An award-winning English and Social Studies teacher at Luther Burbank High School in Sacramento, Calif., Larry Ferlazzo is the author of Helping Students Motivate Themselves: Practical Answers To Classroom Challenges, The ESL/ELL Teacher's Survival Guide, and Building Parent Engagement In Schools.He also maintains the popular Websites of the Day blog. In this EdWeek blog, an experiment in knowledge-gathering, he will address readers' questions on classroom management, ELL instruction, lesson planning, and other issues facing teachers. Send your questions to [email protected]. And offer your own thoughts and responses in the comments section.

Are Teachers Respected Less?

What social/political causes have contributed to the downgrading of respect for the teaching profession?

I think it is safe to say that many of us teachers have felt under attack for many reasons -- whether it's the push for new test result-connected evaluations that are often couched in terms of "firing" teachers instead of helping us improve; the publication of teacher ratings in newspapers, and being told that the "best" people don't become teachers.

But perhaps not all of us feel the same -- maybe others feel that there has not been this "downgrading of respect."

Please leave your responses to Gail's question in the comments section of this post. I'll share a few of them next Wednesday, where I'll also publish my response and ideas from invited guests.

Anyone whose question is selected for this weekly column can choose one free book from a selection of twelve published by Eye On Education. Thanks, Gail!

You can send questions to me at [email protected].When you send in your question, let me know if I can use your real name if it's selected or if you'd prefer remaining anonymous and have a pseudonym in mind.

I'm looking forward to learning from people's responses!

Categories:

Notice: We recently upgraded our comments. (Learn more here.) If you are logged in as a subscriber or registered user and already have a Display Name on edweek.org, you can post comments. If you do not already have a Display Name, please create one here.

Ground Rules for Posting
We encourage lively debate, but please be respectful of others. Profanity and personal attacks are prohibited. By commenting, you are agreeing to abide by our user agreement.
All comments are public.

The opinions expressed in Classroom Q&A With Larry Ferlazzo are strictly those of the author(s) and do not reflect the opinions or endorsement of Editorial Projects in Education, or any of its publications.